Sandy Saturdays #20
I'll Keep It With Mine
There are plenty of versions of this tricky Dylan song. Nico, Judy Collins and Dylan himself stumbled over it for years before everyone shelved it altogether.
Everyone, that is, except Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.
The story starts in June of 64 when Dylan recorded Another Side of Bob Dylan in one rambling and probably pretty drunken night. Dylan did not attempt the song during the session, even though it was freshly written. Would the resulting record be better with I'll Keep It With Mine in place of the whiny, sophomoric Ballad in Plain D? Yes, totally.
But it's a tough song! Here's Dylan that same month trying to figure it out for copyright purposes. Suffice it to say that he does not figure it out.
6 months later, in January 65 (don't believe the date on the video below; I clearly know Dylan's timeline better than he does) he gave it another go, this time during the Bringing It All Back Home sessions. Bob was a far better musician and studio presence by that point and he lays down what is perhaps the song's most elegant take.
Most of us born in the 70's or 80's grew up with this version. Beloved copies of Biograph served as our introduction to all things Bob and this version of I'll Keep It With Mine is one of the collection's signature moments.
But no one in the 60's ever heard this version: Dylan recorded just this one take and then immediately abandoned the whole thing, jumping back into the far more manly, silly and obscure songs that actually make up the record.
At that point Dylan clearly felt done with the whole thing. I'll Keep It was either too complicated, too earnest or too melodic; probably all those things.
And so he tossed the song to Judy Collins, telling her it was meant for her anyway, and she immediately put out a fussy and almost good version that never merited space on one of her albums.
It's too bad Collins got her hands on the track in 65; a year earlier she would have slayed the thing by playing it solo acoustic; don't be fooled, Collins could totally play guitar.
But in 65 she was entering her pop arrangements phase, during which no let her pay an instrument. You can hear the dumb men in the room undercutting her greatness here: everything is rushed and hummable, lacking depth.
Dylan's producer, Bob Johnson, clearly wasn't impressed with Collins' version because he tried to talk Bob back into the song a year later while they were making Blonde on Blonde. Listen to Johnson here, cajoling Dylan into playing the damn thing while perhaps the great assembly of studio musicians in white man musical history work out their parts.
Johnson was so sold on the song that he put the musicians to work on an entirely new arrangement soon thereafter while Bob was momentarily missing in action (he was either writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands at that exact moment, taking uppers and/or downers, or recovering from just having done all those things).
Wow, don't you wish Dylan had given in to Johnson and completed this version? The whole thing is so tight and crisp; I'd love to hear Dylan mangle it. But no dice: Bob had Sad Eyed Lady to record instead, and I guess that worked out pretty damn well.
Still, Johnson's promotion of the track must have stuck with Dylan because the next time he had a goddess to impress - that would be Nico - he offered I'll Keep It With Mine to her.
As we speak, my famous brother is sitting up a little straighter, a look of potential fury forming in his beedy eyes: if I insult his beloved Nico and her VU bandmates his wrath will know no bounds.
Well, tough luck broheim: I think Nico's version, which is from 67, sucks like a cranky old vacuum. The guitar sounds good, and Nico is great in her standard I'm-not-familiar-with-your-language-or-how-to-sing-in-it-but-I'm-fabulous-anyway manner. But John Cale clearly had nothing to do with the string overdubs and they make this whole thing sound like a soundtrack for Honey Bunches of Oats: they're the cheery and wholesome way to start your day.
Enter Fairport Convention. It's 1968 and they suddenly have one of the greatest singers of all time, Sandy Denny, standing alongside their more than capable male vocalist, Ian Matthews. It was time to up their game with a complex, big deal song that everyone knew but no one had ever done quite right. It was time for them to play I'll Keep It With Mine.
Is this the song's perfect take? No. Denny and Matthews had not yet learned how to support one another dynamically (though they'd soon figure it out in a big way) and Matthews' contributions feel competitive here rather than complimentary.
Okay, you ask, it may not be perfect, but is this the best version of I'll Keep It With Mine out there? Naw. I like Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home take just as much.
But, whatever: Fairport's late 68 version is still pretty damn great. On the other side of the Atlantic Neil Young was getting ready to reinvent lead guitar playing on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. But you can hear Richard Thompson doing much of that same work here, albeit in a less flashy fashion: his lead guitar chases itself all over the mix as Simon Nicol ably fills the Danny Whitten chair.
And then there's Sandy's lead vocals. Denny had never played anything larger than a coffee shop at this point and had had just one real recording session with a band beforehand. But she sure doesn't sound like a newbie here. Rather, she sounds like Athena: assured, patient and powerful; Dylan, Collins and Nico are mere mortals beside her.
Update from an hour after posting:
My famous brother just humbled me yet again, offering up two more versions, neither of which I knew about until this moment; I'll let him introduce them himself:
I think I prefer the Richard & Linda Thompson live version over Fairport — uses a pretty similar arrangement, but Linda might have the edge vocally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6Y-R-p7J4
And yeah, the Nico version isn't great, but the Velvet Underground version ... it kind of cooks! Beware of horrible bootleg quality sound here. Legend has it that Lou Reed hated this song but Nico insisted they play it a few times early on. So they basically do it like it's "I'm Waiting For The Man." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP5-vv9mmZM
Imagine emails like this showing up in your inbox regularly. It's sure nice having a famous brother...
This is pretty good too
https://youtu.be/gRwdnOBaIsw?si=E-Z7WWWbgotsynAg
